IF IT HURTS IT’S PROBABLY WORTH IT

Being a long term traveler means one thing: the more time spent on the road means the more encounters and experiences you will have. Most will be pleasant, amazing, and memorable. But some could be real painful. These are the memories that somehow become the most unforgettable…and not meant to be in a bad way: just more profound and life transforming. And when you come out of it to the other side of it, you become free from the pain and hurt and life begins anew. And I don’t mean physical pain, although the third world can pack a punch with some serious intestinal issues.

I’m talking about mental and spiritual growth…these are the growing pains one experiences being on the road for any length of time: Loneliness. Alienation. Estrangement. Isolation. Remoteness. Seclusion. Detachment.

Awesome! Highly recommended. The rest of your life will be so much more rewarding because you will remember where you came from.

When you read OVERLAND, you will see how Danny’s character growth evolves during his lengthy adventures.

And so will yours and if it hurts along the way, it’s probably worth it.

Mark Stephen Levy recently published his novel Overland, a fictional account of an American stranded in Kabul, Afghanistan on December, 27, 1979

RANDOM HAPPENS

How repeatedly do you find yourself using this word, random? Often? Me too. We all know what it means, something that happens that was not planned…out of the blue, accidental, indiscriminate, arbitrary...random!
In my circles and elsewhere on TV, it is a commonly used word, right up there with “whatever”. But the word whatever (I use it too, I’m not preaching here) seems so hopeless and misplaced. Let’s face it. Life is tougher these days. We all have to live with less. It’s easy to fall into a misguided way of thinking. I’m glad “random” has become in vogue as it gives some lift to the whatever way of being. If it is upbeat, random can be positively inspiring. And when that happens so unexpectedly, it feels so good and so surreal. Of course, there is bad random, but “let’s not go there”.
What’s a decent example of good random? Meeting someone that you share so much in common with? It feels sublime to share familiarity with someone you hadn’t met before. That somebody can become an instant friend, maybe for life. And good friends are a good thing!
Regular readers of my posts know where this is going. Of course this has something to do with OVERLAND. This is what this blog is all about. Danny has a string of random encounters in his travels sprinkled throughout Overland. Poetic license? Perhaps. But Overland is a novel, where in a fictional world, anything can happen. And it does for Danny.
But in the cyber world of Facebook and the like, randomness has become common, and that is a good thing too! When Danny traveled about in 1979, there was no high technology. There was just pure luck, and randomness. Find out about the random in Danny’s world.
I’m sure you have had your sure of random encounters in your travels, and if you did, I’m sure they were memorable!

What was your random encounter? Did it change your life forever?

WHEN TIME STOOD STILL

Earlier today I was being very self-deprecating with a good internet friend. She told me she was all banged up and bruised from a rafting trip and that she fell out of the raft in alligator infested waters down a river in South Africa. Then she hit some rocks, some other rafts floated over her, and yet she lived. Amazing that she did and thank goodness! I said that all my years of being a couch potato has paid off.

Okay, both cases are extreme. Most people don’t do what she did, and I’m not always being a couch potato. But then it got me thinking that within one internet exchange, we represented two types of people: those that are adventurous and those that aren’t. Neither category doesn’t make one better than the other.
I view traveling the same way. There are two kinds of people: those that travel and those that don’t. But then you get into a couple of sub-categories. Some people travel to National Parks, or Disney World. Pretty safe destinations, I think. They’re fun and beautiful, but safe. My favorite sub category is extensive exotic adventure traveling or EEAT: leaving your country and your proverbial comfort zone for a long time.

This category is not for everybody. But you might surprise yourself. If you are at first full of reluctance before leaving, by the end, you’ll have wondered why you never did this before. Throw yourself to the whims and mercy down the path of least expected. You’ll be blown away!

What happens out there? Why will you be blown away? And what does that mean, blown away? Basically, however you viewed the world before these adventures, after, you will be different. You’ll feel different. People will recognize this difference within you. They may not understand it, and they may not want to feel what you feel. But you’ll feel it, and it stays with you forever.

Let me explain. When in third worlds, safe third worlds, people will come up to you and want to speak with you. And if their intent is just to chat, and to try out their English, or find out where you are from, it usually is a happy occasion. This exchange leaves you feeling happy too. And if your everyday existence is like this, you begin to realize this is a cool way to live and you’ll want to keep it going. Move on to the next town, or country and you never know who you’re going to meet and what you will see. Eating the local food is incredible. Then browsing in the local markets, and stopping by for a cup of tea. It can turn into a whole day, and then its dinner time. And you feel good, relaxed…at peace with the world, and with yourself.




What is the most complex part to these kinds of extensive adventures is arriving back home. Adjusting to the everyday life of work and routine is so anticlimactic. So much so that if you knew how difficult that part of it was, you would never leave in the first place! But don’t let that stop you anyway.
Here’s my situation: clearly I belong in the EEAT category. Or I did. I rhapsodize and reminisce about it so much that my whole life’s goal now is to get back out there. But I did satisfy one part of me that longs to get back out there and just can’t at the moment. Writing OVERLAND.

When you read OVERLAND, you’ll see how much of what I had lived in these travels, is the story. Although there is plenty of fiction and imagination, it’ll be interesting to speak with people to ask me what stories were real. On some snowy Sunday, I may read my book again and actually count how many moments of my travels are in there. If I had to guess, I would say dozens. The scene when the song “Moonlight Serenade” by Glenn Miller suddenly plays in the most remote and random of circumstances, you’ll wonder where that came from.

I heard it in a pub waiting for the ferry to cross the English Channel from Dover to Calais, France. It was a just one of those magical memories that stood time very still. And very inspirational indeed! You’ll find it in Chapter 23.

Please feel free to make any comments on what happy moments made your time stand still.

WE ARE WHAT WE WRITE

I can't imagine any writer of fiction and certainly non-fiction that hasn't lived and experienced what he or she writes about. Logic tells me that, that is just a fact.

I wonder what Boris Pasternak lived that he was so inspired to write Dr.Zhivago? I suppose in a few minutes in Wiki Internet search, I would know. Sometimes I think it is better to just wonder about things and leave it at that. And not for the fact of disappointment of what you would find out. It's just that these are the kinds of things that random thoughts and daydreams are made of.

When I wrote OVERLAND for the last year and a half, the experiences I called upon happened some 20 years ago. But these were my travel experiences from which I could write with authority and authenticity without actually traveled to some of the places I wrote about. Of course some good and intensive research made up for that!

What's my point in all this?

We are what we write. I am currently pondering on what to write for my next book. I certainly couldn't write any spa novels, or paranormal romances. Nor westerns. No, my genre is travel/adventure and love stories. This is what I know, this is what I think is exciting...and I would think there's a pretty big audience for travel/adventure love stories!

If not, maybe I need to enlist in the military and get some new experiences in a different genre....yeah right! Like what army would take me? To paraphrase an old line: "I would never join an army that would have me as a soldier".

Yep, we are what we write. I know I want to write the sequel to OVERLAND. I have some pretty interesting ideas for it...can't really talk about it here until enough people have read it, then you'll know what I mean.

Then I would ask my readers what they would like to see...but that is another conversation for another posting another day.

Everybody has lived something. And I would encourage anybody that reads this post to try writing about it. Whether it turns into a book, a blog, some notes to yourself. There are some things that you will feel when done writing it: joy, perhaps even cathartic release. When you get it down on paper, it just seems to be more official, to take on truer meaning.


Does that mean whatever rambles around in our heads isn't official? Well, no. But writing it down could clear your head of what you've written, which frees your mind to think of something else...or even release some old demons or think of nothing. And then you begin to think of something else. And then you think about what you wrote and go back to your writing and write some more to where it gushes and then you'll want to turn it into something.

How exciting the process is....try it!

Provocative Excerpt from OVERLAND

A provocative piece from the book:

Heather was in a crowd of other Western travelers, some of them from the Magic Bus ride from Istanbul. They’d been gathered together by the Afghani army and were now being ordered on to buses. She tried to head back to the center of the city towards Danny, but armed Afghani soldiers hampered her effort. She saw the older couple who sang for them in the Iranian desert, fearful and running to get on one of the five buses that appeared to be waiting for them.

“What’s going on?” She asked them

“Just get on the bus!” The man was terrified.

They leapt onto the bus. But Heather hesitated. She couldn’t leave, not without Danny. She took two steps back towards the center of the city, and the Afghani soldiers forced her back towards the buses.

“Why are you doing this, what gives you the right?” Her protests led to more force from the soldiers. She witnessed terror in their eyes. Something was definitely happening. She pleaded with them that she needed to go back.

“No Miss, get on the bus, now.” They blocked her way and turned her around, pushing her onto the bus with the barrels of their guns.

Heather had just placed her foot on the first step of the bus when a bomb blast rocked the city. A shockwave quaked the ground. The sound of the explosion was horrific. Life went to chaos then seemed to stand still. All around, people collapsed onto the ground, jarred by the impact of the explosion. The center of the blast issued up from the direction where Heather thought Danny went. She was shaking, maybe screaming his name. No one was hurt around her. The impact from the bomb had been far enough away not to do them damage, yet, close enough that they could smell the pungent smoke wafting through the area. Gunfire and screams, and more gunfire could be heard resonating throughout the entire city.

Chaos and panic had descended. People ran for their lives, shouting, terrified of that war had come to Kabul. Heather never felt so helpless. She desperately wanted to find Danny. But the Afghani soldiers were intense, forceful. They gave her no option. If she wanted to save her life, she had to do what they ordered, and that was to board the bus, and fast.

Smoke drifted throughout the entire region. Heather became more and more despondent. She cried out, feeling powerless. She couldn’t believe she was being forced to leave Danny. She knew nothing of his condition.

Reluctantly she took the last seat on the bus. The engines revved up, and the Afghani soldiers advised all five buses to move out. Out of Kabul and out of Afghanistan.

______________________________________________________